You can mark it, the St. Louis Cardinals season officially ended in the past week. I know this is my first Fredbird Friday post, but since I’ll be posting these on Friday’s, I’m referring to last Friday through yesterday when I say “in the past week”.

Let’s evaluate the week. One thing I’m going to do every week is give out weekly awards. There will be four of them, two of them good, two of them bad. Without wasting any more of your time, here are your best and worst hitters and pitchers of the past week.

Best Hitter – Matt Carpenter

This should come as a surprise to absolutely no one. We’re very familiar with the home run streak that he was on. He finished the week (again, Friday-Thursday) going 11-for-26 with five home runs, two doubles, nine RBI’s, and five walks. Every stat I just gave you led the team. He also led the team with five strikeouts, but when you put up those numbers, I can handle strikeouts.

Worst Hitter – Harrison Bader

Call me out for labeling him the worst hitter when he only got two starts if you’d like. He had 12 at-bats this week and got three hits in his first seven, but struck out in his last five ABs for the week, including a four-strikeout game on Wednesday. No bueno. He didn’t drive in any runs and yes, home runs are considered when choosing these awards. That’s why Greg Garcia isn’t the winner.

Best Pitcher – Daniel Poncedeleon

This should also come as a surprise to no one. He’s overcome so much to get to this spot and he absolutely owned his debut. He literally almost DIED after he took a line drive to the head last year. Less than a year and a half later, he throws seven hitless innings in the MLB. Not much else to say.

Worst Pitcher – Brett Cecil

Brett Cecil was spiking alcohol sales in St Louis over the weekend. He gave up six runs in 2/3 of an inning. TWO THIRDS. He didn’t record enough outs to even get a full inning and he gave up six runs. Again, not much else to say.

Are changes coming to the Cardinals bullpen? That’s according to John Mozeliak, although he’s not lived up to his word before. “Changes are coming” in the next couple of days or so, as he said on the Bernie Miklasz Show yesterday. But what are they? What should they be? Here’s my Top 3.

Get Dakota Hudson in St Louis

This was happening, and then maybe it wasn’t happening, and then no one really knows what in the hell is happening. What we do know is he was pulled from his start in Memphis after one inning on Wednesday and was greeted with hugs from managers and players in the dugout.

Ideally, you’d think that means he got the call, but does it? Now there’s more speculation that he could be involved in a trade package. I hope that’s not true.

Dakota Hudson has destroyed Triple-A hitters this year, why not give him a shot in the Big Leagues? Like Poncedeleon, it’s long overdue. The Cardinals are at a point where they need to stockpile all the talent they can get for the future. Dakota Hudson has a bright future, and he needs to be in St Louis to start showing it.

DFA Matt Bowman

So in order to get Dakota Hudson to the Bigs, you’re going to have to get someone off the 40-man (Dakota Hudson is not on the 40-man, if you’re curious why)

I’d like to make it known that I am OK with it being either Bowman, Greg Holland, or Brett Cecil, but if I had to make my pick, it would be Bowman.

Matt Bowman showed a lot of potential when he first joined the Cardinals, but he has been awful since then. It’s not totally his fault, Matheny torched his arm and he couldn’t ever recover.

He’s appeared in 22 games this season and given up a run or more in 11 of those appearances. That’s beyond horrible. I don’t trust putting him in the game under any situation, he’s dead weight to the team. Cut the loss, eat his salary (which is next to nothing), and move on.

Trade Jose Martinez to the AL

I don’t have to go over why Jose Martinez is a perfect fit for an AL team, if you don’t understand at this point then there’s no point in explaining it. The main priority when you trade him is get some bullpen help.

It doesn’t even have to be anybody that could make an impact right now. Ideally it would be someone who can help next year, or two years at the latest, but it needs to be a target that can stockpile for the future.

The Cardinals could keep everyone they have slotted in starting rotation spots and likely be good for years to come, the same can not be said for the bullpen. If we really want to make “change” in the bullpen, getting a good return for Jose Martinez would be a good start.

I’m sure some of you will think I’m an idiot, that’s fine. I don’t write and expose all my opinions on the internet for everyone to agree with me. I hope you can at least see where I’m coming from.

We’ll see what happens. Hopefully we will see some “change”, as Mo promises, and hopefully it will be positive change.